Welcome to the newest column at the Trinidadco.com site brought to you by WWW.USMorlans.com , The Home of All Things Computer, owned and operated by Pete Morlan in Trinidad, CO. Pete has over 20 years of computer and telephone related experience and will be bringing you tips that will enhance the use of your computer whether you are beginner or experienced computer user. If you have specific questions they may be emailed to Pete at [email protected] and he will be happy to answer them in this forum. We will vary our tips for different operating systems from tip to tip so be sure to check in often for a new tip. Please remember that these tips are to be tried at your own risk and Trinidadco.com nor USMorlans.com assumes no responsibility for any problems that you may encounter while utilizing them.

Question: How can I stop those annoying pop-up ads while surfing the net without spending money on more software?
Answer: While there are some good pop-up blockers available they can and often do cause some conflict with virus software such as McAfee and Norton. A simple and proven method is to watch the screen and as you see the pop-up ad begin to appear hold down the Control Key (labeled Ctrl on most keyboards) and hit the W key. This Windows shortcut will close the pop-up window immediately! This tip works for Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP. UsMorlans.com also recommends that regardless of your operating system that you must have McAfee or Norton and then on all our customerā€™s computers, we install Adaware SE, Spybot Search & Destroy and CCleaner to prevent popups. These programs are also safe and quality tested to insure your safety as long as you keep them up to date. All but McAfee and Norton are free programs readily found on the web.

Tip: If you own a computer be it a laptop or Desktop model that is more than 3 years old and you are considering upgrading it to Windows XP, here are some things to consider: Early Windows 98 machines often had only 32 megabytes of random access
memory. That is enough to run Windows 98, after a fashion but it is
hopelessly inadequate today. You need a minimum of 256MB of RAM for
Windows XP. You can upgrade the memory at a reasonable price. Your
computer's instructions probably tell you how to do that.
That's it for easy upgrades. Laptops are crammed with small parts. You
might be able to open it and install a larger hard drive, but I don't
recommend it. Any upgrades that require that the machine be opened
probably should be done by a professional.
Windows 98 is crash prone, especially compared to Windows XP. The
latter system, which came out in 2001, is the Rock of Gibraltar
compared to Windows 98 but Windows XP has about 45 million lines
of code, and it requires a lot of horsepower. Even with sufficient
memory, it probably would overwhelm your chip. A 300-megahertz chip
is the minimum acceptable. That is probably what you have. However,
that's really not enough power. You'll learn the true meaning of slow
if you run XP on your old machine.
Microsoft can tell you whether your machine is salvageable. You can
download and run the Upgrade Advisor at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/compatibility/default.asp
Here's my advice: Buy a new computer. You can get a fast laptop for
less than $1,000. Or if a desktop will do, figure on spending less than
$800.
Thatā€™s it for this question and tip. Remember to email your questions and comments to [email protected] .